Storm Front (Dresden Files, #1)

by Jim Butcher

[empressbrooke]

Earlier this year, I greatly enjoyed the first season of the Sci Fi Channel's The Dresden Files. It certainly wasn't Buffy or X-Files caliber, as far as paranormal television goes, but it was great escapism fun with some interesting characters. As I'm likely to do after discovering that something I watched and enjoyed was based on a book, I went out and got the first book in the series.

I read the 300-pages of Storm Front in less than 24 hours, and it was such a relief to read something light after a lot of the books I've been reading lately. The series is about a wizard named Harry - but not that Harry. Harry Dresden lists himself under "Wizard" in the phone book, and basically serves as a private eye. His friends include Karrin Murphy, a police lieutenant who turns to him for help in supernatural crimes, and Bob, a memory spirit who lives in a skull.

I was instantly reminded of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series; it's told in the first person by a hardboiled character who lives in a world where the paranormal is normal. Luckily, unlike Anita, Harry doesn't engage in insane sex with long-haired men who wear thigh-high boots every 10 pages, so I guess the comparison is to the early Anita books. As a stand-alone novel, it would be rather disappointing, but it's just perfect as a beginning to a series. It sets up the characters and hints at things in their pasts that are sure to be explained more later on. I've got the rest of the series lined up on reserve at the library, and hopefully they will live up to the expectations Storm Front created.